Jesus and other saviors/heroes

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
nightshadetwine
Posts: 253
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2018 10:35 am

Jesus and other saviors/heroes

Post by nightshadetwine »

In this post I wanted to provide the "evidence" for why I see Jesus as being influenced by other saviors/heroes. I'm going to show that often times the savior/hero:
  • Is born to a mortal woman impregnated by god
  • Is the descendant of royalty or is going to be future king
  • Has his life threatened when he's born and has to be hidden away
  • A prophecy is given saying that the savior/hero will do great things
  • Performs miracles like raising people from the dead, healing the blind, turning water into wine, etc
  • Dies and resurrects or overcomes death
The saviors/heroes I'm going to be focusing on are Jesus, Dionysus, Hercules, Asclepius, and Osiris/Horus/Pharaoh. The reason I have Osiris, Horus, and the Pharaoh grouped together is because often times the Pharaoh was said to be Horus or the son of god while he was alive and Osiris when he died and resurrected. I'm also going to sometimes add an Egyptian hero named Si-Osire to Osiris/Horus/Pharoah.
  • The savior/hero born to a mortal woman, son of god, prophecy saying he will do great things or be future king:
Jesus

Luke 1: 29-33:
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Matthew 1:20-25:
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[f] because he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
24When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Osiris/Horus/Pharaoh/Si-Osire

From "Chronicle of a Pharaoh: The Intimate Life of Amenhotep III" by Joann Fletcher:
At Luxor we can follow the great king from his divine conception right through his life, and beyond. The story begins with Amun diplomatically taking the form of Tuthmosis to visit Mutemwia, who is asleep in the inner rooms of her palace. According to the inscriptions that accompany the temple reliefs, "She awoke on account of the aroma of the god and cried out before him ... He went to her straight away, she rejoiced at the sight of his beauty, and love for him coursed through her body. The palace was flooded with the god's aroma. "Words spoken by Mutemwia before the majesty of this great god Amun-Ra: `How strong is your power! Your dew fills my body,' and then the majesty of this god did all that he desired with her.Words spoken by Amun-Ra: `Amenhotep, ruler of Thebes, is the name of this child I have placed in your body ... He shall exercise the beneficent kingship in this whole land, he shall rule the Two Lands like Ra forever.'" The sandstone reliefs depict the couple's fingers touching briefly—and in this auspicious instant Amenhotep, son of Amun, is conceived.
From "Handbook of Egyptian Mythology" By Geraldine Pinch:
Many kings claimed that they, like Horus, had been chosen to rule "while still in the egg". In practice, it was the inaugeration rituals that turned the chosen heir into "the living Horus"...The accession of individual kings might be validated by giving them a divine parent. One such royal birth myth is found in the inauguration incriptions of King Horemheb[c. 1319-1307 BCE]. Horemheb was a soldier who served under Akhenaton and Tutankhamun, but the inscription presents his career in mythological terms. He is called the son of Horus...Horemheb claims that his exceptional qualities were evident as soon as he was born and that Horus of Hnes always intended that he should be king...Horemheb is then able to restore the country and it's institutions to the way things were "in the time of Ra"
From "God's Wife, God's Servant: The God's Wife of Amun (ca.740–525 BC)" by By Mariam F. Ayad:
...a union with the king's mother and the supreme deity imbued the future king with his divine nature. It was precisely this divine nature that enabled an Egyptian king to serve as a mediator between mankind and the gods<e><e>[/b]</e></B></e></B>. Temple scene representing the king's divine conception and birth are known from the reigns of Queen Hatshepsut(c. 1479/73-1458/57 BC) and Amenhotep III(c. 1390-1352 BC)"
From "Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt" By Geraldine Pinch:
Harsiese [Horus, son of Isis] was destined to be king from the moment of conception.
From "Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume 3: The Late Period" by Miriam Lichtheim:
[One night] she dreamed that one spoke to her [saying:"Are] you Mehusekhe, [the wife] of Setne, who is lying [here in the temple] so as to recieve healing?----[When tomorrow has come] go to [the place where your husband] Setne bathes. You will find a melon vine grown there. [break off a branch] with it's gourds and grind it. [Make it into] a remedy, put it in [in water and drink it]---[you will recieve the fluid of conception] from him that [night]. Mehusekhe awoke [from] the dream in which she had seen these things. She acted in accordance with (5) [everything she had been told in the dream. She lay down by] the side of her husband [Setne]. She received [the fluid of] conception from him. When [her time of purification came she had] the sign [of a women who has concieved. It was announced to Setne, and] his heart was very happy on account of it.
One night Setne slept [and dreamed that one spoke] to him, saying: "Mehusekhe, your wife, has received [the fluid of conception from you]. The boy that shall be born [shall be named] Si-Osire. Many are [the wonders that he shall do in Egypt. Setne awoke] from the dream in which he had seen these things. [and his heart was very happy.
[Mehusekhe] made [her months of pregnancy]----[When her time of bearing] she bore a male child. When Setne was informed of it [he named him] Si-Osire, in accordance with what had been said in the dream.---(10)---, they cradled him and nursed him.
I also wanted to add here that there are more parallels between the stories of Si-Osire and Jesus such as Si-Osire impressing his teachers at temple at the age of 12 and the parable of the rich man and poor man in gLuke.
From "Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume 3: The Late Period" by Miriam Lichtheim:
H. Gressmann's penetrating study, "Vom reichen Mann und armen Lazarus", has made it plausible that the contrasting scenes of the richly buried nobleman who is tortured in the netherworld and the cursorily buried poor man who becomes an honored nobleman in the netherworld were genuinely Egyptian motifs that formed the basis for the parable of Jesus in Luke 16, 19-31, and for the related Jewish legends, preserved in many variants in Talmudic and medieval Jewish sources.
From https://www.ancient.eu/article/1054/the ... nce-setna/:
The stories have influenced many later writers and important works of literature. Herodotus cites Setna as the high priest Sethos in one of his best-known passages regarding the troops of the Assyrian king Sennacherib defeated by mice who gnaw through their equipment while they sleep (Histories II. 141). This passage is his version of the story told in the biblical book of II Kings 19:35 in which an angel of the Lord destroys the Assyrian army laying siege to Jerusalem. The sequence from Setna II in which Setna and his son Si-Osire travel to the underworld draws upon Greek mythology and influences later Christian scripture in the story of the rich and poor man in the afterlife.
The contrast of the rich and poor man in life and death, later skillfully used by the author of the Book of Luke, illustrates the importance of the central value of ancient Egypt: observance of ma'at.
Dionysus

From http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Dionysos.html and http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Zagreus.html:
Dionysos was a son of Zeus and the princess Semele of Thebes...ZAGREUS, "the first-born Dionysos," was a god of the Orphic Mysteries. He was a son of Zeus and Persephone who had been seduced by the god in the guise of a serpent. Zeus placed Zagreus upon the throne of heaven and armed him with his lightning bolts.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus# ... nd_rebirth:
Dionysus' mother was a mortal woman, Semele, the daughter of king Cadmus of Thebes, and his father was Zeus, the king of the gods
From Philodamus' Paean to Dionysus:
Come here lord, Dithyrambus, Bacchus greeted with "hail", bull, ivy-tressed, Roarer, come in these spring times that are holy - O io Bacchus, O hail Paean - whom in Thebes once, where "hail" is cried, Thyone of fair children bore to Zeus, and all the immortals danced, and all mortals rejoiced 10 at your birth, O Bacchian. Hail Paean, come, saviour, kindly preserve this city with a blessed era of prosperity
From Euripides Bacchae:
They particularly insist on the preternatural birth of Dionysus from Semele, on which doubts had been impiously cast by Pentheus. They implore Thebes, the birthpace of Semele, not to reject the holy rites; and predict , with the usual enthusiasm of religious votaries that the whole earth will soon be converted to the new worship.
Hercules:

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracles# ... _childhood:
Heracles was the son of the affair Zeus had with the mortal woman Alcmene...He was a great-grandson and half-brother(as they are both sired by the god Zeus) of Perseus[founder of the Perseid dynasty]
From Diodorus Siculus "Library of History Book IV. 1-18":
When the natural time of pregnancy had passed, Zeus, whose mind was fixed upon the birth of Heracles, announced in advance in the presence of all the gods that it was his intention to make the childwho should be born that day king over the descendants of Perseus<
Aclepius

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepius#Birth:
He was the son of Apollo and, according to the earliest accounts, a mortal woman named Coronis
From Aelian, On Animals 10. 49 (trans. Scholfield) (Greek natural history C2nd A.D.):
The god [Apollon] can not only save life but is also the begetter of Asklepios (Asclepius), man's saviour and champion against diseases.
From Pindar, Pythian Ode 3. 5 ff (trans. Conway) (Greek lyric C5th B.C.):
His mother, daughter of Phlegyas the horseman...even though her maiden bed she had already shared with Apollon[the god Apollo] of the flowing hair, and bore within her the god's holy seed
From Ovid, Metamorphoses 2. 620 ff (trans. Melville):
So when she felt the prophetic frenzy in her mind, and was on fire with the god enclosed in her breast, she looked at the infant boy and cried out ‘Grow and thrive, child, healer of all the world! Human beings will often be in your debt, and you will have the right to restore the dead. But if ever it is done regardless of the god’s displeasure you will be stopped, by the flame of your grandfather’s lightning bolt, from doing so again. From a god you will turn to a bloodless corpse, and then to a god who was a corpse, and so twice renew your fate.
  • Savior's/hero's life threatened at birth and having to be hid away from harm:
Jesus

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Innocents:
According to the Gospel of Matthew,[1] Herod ordered the execution of all young male children two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_into_Egypt:
an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to flee to Egypt with Mary and the infant Jesus since King Herod would seek the child to kill him.
Horus

From "Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt" By Geraldine Pinch:
His epithet, "Horus who is upon the papyrus," alludes to the myth that Isis hid the infant Horus in the papyrus thickets of Akh-bit[Chemmis], an island among the marshes.
From https://www.ancient.eu/Horus/:
Isis endured a difficult pregnancy with exceptionally long labor and gave birth to Horus alone in the swamps of the Delta. She hid herself and her son from Set and his demons in the thickets, only going out at night for food accompanied by a bodyguard of seven scorpions who were given her by the goddess Selket. Selket (and, in some versions of the story, Neith) watched over Horus while Isis went out. Isis, Selket, and Neith nurtured Horus and educated him in their exile until he was grown to manhood and was strong enough to challenge his uncle for his father's kingdom.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metternich_Stela:
Set was content thinking he would become the pharaoh of the living, but what he didn't know was that Isis was pregnant with Osiris's child. He would become pharaoh of the living because of his birthright. After Isis gave birth to Horus, it was thought that he would become the new pharaoh of the living, but once Set found out he became very angry.
At this point the actual spell starts on the Magical Stela. Set had the child poisoned by a scorpion, which is often associated with the serpent demon,
Apophis. Isis was outraged with grief at the death of her child. She called out to Ra and asked him for his aid. He sent Thoth who restored the child
to life. From that point Ra would act as an advocate to Horus, just as his father Osiris would've done if alive.
Dionysus

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus# ... nd_rebirth:
Zeus's wife, Hera, discovered the affair while Semele was pregnant. Appearing as an old crone (in other stories a nurse), Hera befriended Semele, who confided in her that Zeus was the actual father of the baby in her womb. Hera pretended not to believe her, and planted seeds of doubt in Semele's mind. Curious, Semele demanded of Zeus that he reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his godhood. Though Zeus begged her not to ask this, she persisted and he agreed. Therefore, he came to her wreathed in bolts of lightning; mortals, however, could not look upon an undisguised god without dying, and she perished in the ensuing blaze. Zeus rescued the unborn Dionysus by sewing him into his thigh...A jealous Hera again attempted to kill the child, this time by sending Titans to rip Dionysus to pieces after luring the baby with toys...According to the myth, Zeus gave the infant Dionysus to the care of Hermes. One version of the story is that Hermes took the boy to King Athamas and his wife Ino, Dionysus' aunt. Hermes bade the couple to raise the boy as a girl, to hide him from Hera's wrath...Another version is that Dionysus was taken to the rain-nymphs of Nysa, who nourished his infancy and childhood...while Mount Nysa is a mythological location, it is invariably set far away to the east or to the south. The Homeric hymn to Dionysus places it "far from Phoenicia, near to the Egyptian stream"
http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Dionysos.html and http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Zagreus.html:
Bound by oath, the god was forced to comply and she was consumed by the heat of his lightning-bolts. Zeus recovered their unborn child from her body, sewed him up in his own thigh, and carried him to term...After his birth from the thigh of Zeus, Dionysos was first entrusted to the care of Seilenos (Silenus) and the nymphs of Mount Nysa, and later to his aunt Ino, Semele's sister, and her husband Athamas. Hera was enraged when she learned of the boy's location and drove the couple mad, causing them to kill both their children and themselves...However the most popular locale remained Mt Nysa which later writers relocated in the east far beyond the boundaries of Greece: in Phoenicia, Egypt, Arabia, or India...Zeus placed Zagreus[Dionysus] upon the throne of heaven and armed him with his lightning bolts. The Titanes, incited by the jealous goddess Hera, sneaked into Olympos and offered the boy a collection of toys, tricking him into setting aside the lightning. They then seized and dismembered him with their knives.
Hercules

Diodorus Siculus "Library of History Book IV. 1-18:
After Alcmenê had brought forth the babe, fearful of Hera’s jealousy she exposed it at a place which to this time is called after him the Field of Heracles.
[4.10.1] After this Hera sent two serpents to destroy the babe, but the boy, instead of being terrified, gripped the neck of a serpent in each hand and strangled them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracles:
Thus, Heracles' very existence proved at least one of Zeus' many illicit affairs, and Hera often conspired against Zeus' mortal offspring as revenge for her husband's infidelities...Fear of Hera's revenge led Alcmene to expose the infant Heracles, but he was taken up and brought to Hera by his half-sister Athena, who played an important role as protectress of heroes.
Asclepius

Pindar, Pythian Ode 3. 5 ff (trans. Conway) (Greek lyric C5th B.C.):
Long ago he [Kheiron (Chiron)] nursed gentle Asklepios (Asclepius), that craftsman of new health for weary limbs and banisher of pain, the godlike healer of mortal sickness. His mother, daughter of Phlegyas the horseman, ere with the help of Eleithyia, the nurse of childbirth, she could bring her babe to the light of day, was in her chamber stricken by the golden shafts of Artemis, and to the hall of death went down For she in the madness of her heart had spurned the god, and unknown to her father took another lover, even though her maiden bed she had already shared with Apollon of the flowing hair, and bore within her the god's holy seed...But when upon the high wood pure her kinsmen had set the maid, and the flames of Hephaistos shot their bright tongues around her, then cried out Apollon : ‘No longer shall my soul endure that my own son here with his mother in her death most pitiable should perish thus, in sorry grief.’ So spoke he and in one stride was there, and seized the babe from the dead maid; and round him the blazing flames opened a pathway.
Then he took the child to the Magnetian Kentauros (Centaur) [i.e. Kheiron (Chiron)], that he teach him to be a healer for mankind of all their maladies and ills.
http://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/Asklepios.html:
His mother died in labour and when she was laid out on the pyre, Apollon cut the unborn child from her womb...Asklepios was raised by the centaur Kheiron (Chiron) who instructed him in the art of medicine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepius#Birth:
His mother was killed for being unfaithful to Apollo and was laid out on a funeral pyre to be consumed, but the unborn child was rescued from her womb. Or, alternatively, his mother died in labor and was laid out on the pyre to be consumed, but Apollo rescued the child, cutting him from Coronis's womb...Apollo carried the baby to the centaur Chiron who raised Asclepius and instructed him in the art of medicine.
Last edited by nightshadetwine on Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:46 am, edited 2 times in total.
nightshadetwine
Posts: 253
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2018 10:35 am

Re: Jesus and other saviors/heroes

Post by nightshadetwine »

  • Performs miracles Like raising people from the dead, turning water into wine, healing the blind, etc.:
Jesus

You're all familiar with the miracles Jesus performs like raising a dead man, healing the blind, turning water into wine, etc.

Horus

In the Pyramid Texts Horus resurrects Osiris. The story is very similar to the story of Jesus resurrecting Lazarus. The two sisters of Osiris mourn his death just like Lazarus two sisters mourn his death.

John 11:
Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha... When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts by James P Allen:
Recitation 198: Ho, Osiris Teti! Stand up, raise yourself!
Recitation 200: Ho, Osiris Teti! Stand up, for Horus has made you stand up.
Recitation 194: This Teti’s sister (Wadjet), the Lady of Pe, is the one who cried for him,
and the two attendants, (Isis and Nephthys), who mourned Osiris have mourned him,
Recitation 152: Isis, this Osiris here is your brother, whom you have made revive and live:
he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will
not die,
he will not perish and this Unis will not perish;
Nephthys, this Osiris here is your brother, whom you have made
revive and live:
he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will
not die,
he will not perish and this Unis will not perish;
Horus, this Osiris here is your father, whom you have made revive
and live:
he will live and this Unis will live, he will not die and this Unis will
not die,
he will not perish and this Unis will not perish
Recitation 526 Raise yourself, clear away your dust, remove the shroud on your face.
Loosen your ties
...
Dionysus

Pliny The Elder "Natural History":
According to Mucianus, there is a fountain at Andros, consecrated to Father Liber [another name, meaning
“free one”, for Dionysus], from which wine flows during the seven days appointed for the yearly festival of that god, the taste of which becomes like that of water the moment it is taken out of sight of the temple.
Diodorus Siculus Library of History Book 3 chapter 66:
The Teans advance as proof that the god was born among them the fact that, even to this day, at fixed times in their city a fountain of wine, of unusually sweet fragrance, flows of its own accord from the earth
From "Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians" by Courtney Friesen:
A juxtaposition of Jesus and Dionysus is also invited in the New Testament Gospel of John, in which the former is credited with a distinctively Dionysiac miracle in the wedding at Cana: the transformation of water into wine (2:1-11). In the Hellenistic world, there were many myths of Dionysus' miraculous production of wine, and thus, for a polytheistic Greek audience, a Dionysiac resonance in Jesus' wine miracle would have been unmistakable. To be sure, scholars are divided as to whether John's account is inspired by a polytheistic legend; some emphasize rather it's affinity with the Jewish biblical tradition. In view of the pervasiveness of Hellenism, however, such a distinction is likely not sustainable. Moreover, John's Gospel employs further Dionysiac imagery when Jesus later declares, "I am the true vine". John's Jesus, thus,presents himself not merely as a "New Dionysus," but one who supplants and replaces him.
Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life By Karl Kerényi:
On the island of Andros, after the introduction of the Julian calender, the same date[Jan 5] was set for a Dionysian miracle, the transformation of the water from a certain spring into wine
Hercules

In Euripides’ "Alcestis" Hercules resurrects a dead woman.
Herakles:
Now keep her safe [sôzô]. Hereafter you will say the son of Zeus is a generous guest [xenos]. 1120 Look at her, see if she bears resemblance to your wife, and then change from pain to happiness. [He unveils Alcestis.]
Admetos:
O gods, what shall I say? This is a marvel beyond hope. Do I truly behold my wife or does some god afflict me with false joy? 1125
Herakles:
In very deed do you behold your wife.
Admetos:
Take care that it be no phantom from below.
Herakles:
Do not make your guest out to be one who evokes the shades.
Admetos:
And do I see my wife, whom I entombed?
Herakles:
Be sure of it, but I am not surprised that you are diffident. 1130
Admetos:
May I touch her, may I speak to her as my living wife?
Herakles:
Speak to her; you have all you have desired.
Admetos:
Dearest [most philê] of women, do see I again your face, your person? This exceeds all hope: I thought I would never see you again.
Herakles:
You have her; may no god be envious to you. 1135
Admetos:
O generous son of great Zeus! May you be blessed [have a good daimôn] and may the father who sired you protect [sôzô] you! You alone restored her to me. How did you bring her back to the light from the realms below?
Herakles:
I fought with the one who lords it over the shades. 1140
Admetos:
Where did you join this contest [agôn] with Death?
Herakles:
I lay in wait, and seized him at the tomb.
Admetos:
But why does my wife thus stand speechless?
Herakles:
It is not yet permitted [themis] that you hear Her voice addressing thee, until she is purified with 1145 offerings to the gods below and the third day has come. But lead her in: and as you are just [dikaios] in all Besides, Admetos, see that you reverence strangers [xenoi]. Farewell: I go to achieve the assigned labor [ponos] For the tyrant [turannos] son of Sthenelus. 1150
Asclepius

Inscriptiones Graecae, 4.1, nos. 121-122,[2nd half of 4th c. B.C.], Epidaurus 9 in Edelstein 1. 223 and 231-232:
A man came as a suppliant to the god[Asclepius]. He was so blind that of one of his eyes he had only the eyelids left - within them was nothing, but they were entirely empty. Some of those in the temple laughed at his silliness to think that he could recover his sight when one of his eyes had not even a trace of the ball, but only the socket. As he slept a vision appeared to him. It seemed to him that the god prepared some drug, then, opening his eyelids, poured it into them. When day came he departed with the sight of both eyes restored.
"Resurrection in Mark's Literary-Historical Perspective" By Paul Fullmer:
[ Resurrection of Hippolytus by Asclepius] In his poetic exposition of the roman festal calendar, The Fasti, Publius Ovidius Naso ('Ovid') recounts a popular narrative about the bodily resurrection of Hippolytus. The pre-Christian date of The Fasti is indicated in part by Ovid's letter of dedication to the emperor Augustus written in 8 C.E. Other indications in the work itself suggest that Ovid's recensions continued until his death around 18 C.E. So the bodily resurrection recounted in Ovid's Fasti predates the ministry of Jesus and the rise of Christianity, having been written before 18 C.E.
Pindar, Pythian Ode 3. 5 ff (trans. Conway) (Greek lyric C5th B.C.):
...even this man was tempted to bring back to life one whom the jaws of death had seized already.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 26. 1 - 7 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.):
Presently it was reported over every land and sea that Asklepios was discovering everything he wished to heal the sick, and that he was raising dead men to life.
From Ovid's "Metamorphoses" Bk II:633-675:
So when she felt the prophetic frenzy in her mind, and was on fire with the god enclosed in her breast, she looked at the infant boy and cried out ‘Grow and thrive, child, healer of all the world! Human beings will often be in your debt, and you will have the right to restore the dead.
  • Death and resurrection of the savior/hero:
Osiris/Horus/Pharaoh
From "Following Osiris: Perspectives on the Osirian Afterlife from Four Millennia" By Mark Smith:
But the crucial significance of Osiris for them lay in what he personally had experienced. His life, death, and resurrection were perceived to be particularly momentous in relation to their own fates, and thus they figure more prominently in the textual record than do accounts of the exploits of other divinities. Moreover, because so much importance was invested in the fact that these were events actually experienced by a real individual, and not merely abstractions, personal detail was essential in recounting them.
From "Les fêtes d'Osiris à Abydos au Moyen Empire et au Nouvel Empire" by M-Christine Lavier:
Then came the different rituals which culminated in the climax of the festival of Abydos: the resurrection of Osiris. It probably took place in the House of Gold, in the district of Peqer, close to the divine tomb...Resting by the statue, he was supposed to capture "spirit" of the god by the Haker exclamation, "come to me!". The figure was then considered as living and inhabited by Osiris who was revived and took the name of Onnophris. The resurrection was announced in the Thinite nome, to the living as to the deceased, who shared, at the time of the Haker-festival, the greatest exultation and the hope of their own triumph over death. Brought back to life, Osiris-Onnophris then received justification in Peqer, corresponding to the myth to the one received at the end of the suit instituted in Seth before the tribunal of Heliopolis. After the ascribed acclamation, the prophet of Harendotes put on the god's head the crowns of justification to general rejoicing. This recognition of Osiris had like effect, in the beyond, to count the dead and to distinguish the blessed ones, victorious of the judgement. In the world of the living, it had as a consequence the transference of the paternal royal function to Horus, the legitimate heir. Resuscitated, recognised as just, and in the middle of the jubilation of the inhabitants of the Thinite nome and the rejoicing of the deceased, Osiris-Onnophris left Peqer on board of the Neshmet-barque to triumphantly join his temple by the great processional way.
From "The Festivals of Osiris and Sokar in the Month of Khoiak: The Evidence from Nineteenth Dynasty Royal Monuments at Abydos" by Katherine J. Eaton:
It reports the use of three major barques in the procession from the Osiris Temple to Peker--the great barque, the nsmt-barque and the barque "Truly-arisen-is-the-Lord-of-Abydos"-- along with a portable shrine.
From "Resurrection in Ancient Egypt" by Jan Assmann:
Isis, the sister and wife of Osiris, traverses Egypt in search of the membra disiecta of her brother, reassembling them into the shape of a body. Together with her sister Nephthys she bewails the body in long songs of lamentation using the power of speech as a means of reanimation. Isis and Nephthys were so successful in their reanimating recitations that Isis was able to receive a child from the reanimated body of Osiris. This is the first step toward resurrection. The appearance of Horus, the son and heir of Osiris, marks the second scene of the myth and initiates the second phase of resurrection.
From "Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt" By Jan Assmann:
Only thus, in the realm of the dead, could he become the center of a sphere of eternal life for every deceased person who followed him. "Salvation" and "eternal life" are Christian concepts, and we might think that the Egyptian myth can all too easily be viewed through the lens of Christian tradition. Quite the contrary, in my opinion, Christian myth is itself thoroughly stamped by Egyptian tradition, by the myth of Isis and Osiris, which from the very beginning had to do with salvation and eternal life.
From "Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity" By Richard C. Miller:
Source: Diodorus Siculus 1.25.6-7 Fable: Following the Ptolemic manner of interpretio graeca, Diodorus offered a Hellenistic adaptation of the resurrection tale of the ancient Egyptian mythic king Horus. As with the analogous tale of the raising and immortalization of King Osiris passed down to us through Plutarch (Isis and Osiris), Isis administered a magic drug that raised her dead son, King Horus, and bestowed upon him immortal deification.
From "The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt" by Richard H. Wilkinson:
The great sun god Re was thought to grow old each day and to 'die' each night(though for the same reason, specific mention of the god's death is not found[because such a statement would be believed to magically preserve the reality of the god's death]), and then to be born or resurrected each day at dawn.
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology David Adams Leeming:
The myth of Horus justifies the sacred kingship. Horus is Osiris reborn. And Osiris's resurrection as Horus represents the possibility of any individual's succeeding on the traditional heroic journey into the underworld
The Search for God in Ancient Egypt By Jan Assmann:
Quite similarly, at a very early date, Egyptian texts began to celebrate the resurrection of the king, who has emerged from his tomb and ascended to the sky, as a theophany.
The Search for God in Ancient Egypt By Jan Assmann:
All this took form in Osiris: he was the mourned and resurrected god who experienced and overcame death.
Dionysus

From "Tracing Orpheus: Studies of Orphic Fragments" edited by Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui, Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Eugenio R. Luján Martínez, Raquel Martín Hernández, Marco Antonio Santamaría Álvarez, Sofía Torallas Tovar:
It is precisely in reference to this affirmation that I would like to present the case of three deities who are not usually considered among the 'dying and rising': the Greek Dionysus, the Sumerian Inanna, and the Ugaritic Baal. After discussing each myth I shall return to Smiths's assertions...This brief excursion through Greek and Near-Eastern mythology demonstrates that the idea of the death and resurrection of the gods is not as impossible as is usually argued. Moreover, the texts are ancient enough to consider them independently from the most famous case of the death and resurrection of a god, the history of Jesus. Perhaps it is time to discuss this famous and popular topic from a different perspective.
From "On Piety" by Philodemus:
And (some say) that Dionysos has three births: of these, first is the onefrom his mother, second that from the thigh of Zeus, and third the one when he was torn apart by the Titans and came back to life after Rhea reassembled his limbs. And in his Mopsopia also Euphorion agrees with these last two points; the Orphics indeed dwell on them.
From "The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations" by Jan Bremmer and Andrew Erskine:
In contrast to Zeus, Dionysos and Persephone do have a deep relation with human salvation. In the case of Dionysus, his insertion into the myth of divine successions (OF 296) is a novelty because it is ignored by Hesiod; furthermore, Dionysus enters it in a special situation, that of a god who dies and resurrects, if we want to put it in a different way, is dismembered and reconstituted. His tomb in Parnassus shows him as a mortal, but he is then returned to his divine condition (OF 323-6).
From "Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets" by Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston:
In the first century CE, Cornutus reports that "according to myth" Rhea revived Dionysus after he had been torn apart by the titans...The following points seem clear then: at least as early as Euphorion, there was a story that Rhea revived Dionysus after his dismemberment that could be regarded as "Orphic".
From "Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians" by Courtney Friesen:
Not only does Paul employ language that reflects mystery cults in several places, his Christian community resembles them in various ways.They met in secret or exclusive groups, employed esoteric symbols, and practiced initiations, which involved identification with the god’s suffering and rebirth. Particularly Dionysiac is the ritualized consumption of wine in private gatherings (1 Cor 11:17-34).
Herules

From "Herakles" By Emma Stafford:
Whatever other traits the two deities shared, a major point of contact, which suggested their identity to the Greeks, seems to have been the belief that they had been burnt on a pyre and subsequently resurrected.
From "The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East" By Javier Teixidor:
Of the youth god Melqart we know that Eudoxus of Cnidos (ca. 355 B.C.) is quoted by Athenaeus (392d) as saying that the Phoenicians "sacrificed quails to Heracles, because Heracles, the son of Asteria and Zeus, went into Libya and was killed by Typhon.".....According to Athennaeus, the episode of Heracles' death did not end there, for Iolaus "brought a quail to him and having put it close to him, he smelt it and came to life again." The quail sacrifice thus would commemorate the death and resurrection of Heracles. This event was probably celebrated in an annual festival at Tyre to which Josephus seems to refer in his Jewish Antiquities (8. 146).
Asclepius

From Ovid's "Metamorphoses" Bk II:633-675:
So when she felt the prophetic frenzy in her mind, and was on fire with the god enclosed in her breast, she looked at the infant boy and cried out ‘Grow and thrive, child, healer of all the world! Human beings will often be in your debt, and you will have the right to restore the dead. But if ever it is done regardless of the god’s displeasure you will be stopped, by the flame of your grandfather’s lightning bolt, from doing so again. From a god you will turn to a bloodless corpse, and then to a god who was a corpse, and so twice renew your fate.
From Fasti book 6 by Ovid XI. KAL. 21st:
Fearing the example thus set, Jupiter aimed a thunderbolt at him who used the resources of a too potent art[raising the dead]. Phoebus, thou didst complain. But Aesculapius is a god, be reconciled to thy parent: he did himself for thy sake what he forbids others to do.
So as we can see, these motifs were around before Christianity. I think the writers of the gospels were aware of a lot of these and made Jesus an amalgamation of the different saviors/heroes.
rgprice
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Re: Jesus and other saviors/heroes

Post by rgprice »

There are two big problems with most of this:
1) Many of these stories about Jesus didn't develop until much later. The original concept of Jesus was not even as a human being. The birth narrative, for example was added much later, many early Christian sects said that Jesus had never been born at all, that he had existed since the beginning of time, etc.
2) The Jewish sources for the Jesus story are obvious. Every aspect of Jesus can clearly and definitively be traced to Jewish sources.

Looking for "pagan influences" on the origin of the figure is barking up the wrong tree. There were definitely a lot of pagan influences on the later development of Christianity, like from 4th century on, but the original cult was very Jewish in origin. The parallels with Jewish stories are far, far closer than anything from pagan mythology.
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus and other saviors/heroes

Post by Giuseppe »

rgprice wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:10 amEvery aspect of Jesus can clearly and definitively be traced to Jewish sources.
RG Price, I would like an answer from you about this question about Mark (basically, the only thing who I found missing in your book):


viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4536

Thanks for any answer.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Jesus and other saviors/heroes

Post by GakuseiDon »

nightshadetwine wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 12:58 am In this post I wanted to provide the "evidence" for why I see Jesus as being influenced by other saviors/heroes.

<data snipped>
Nice data! I'm looking forward to you providing evidence for the story of Jesus being influenced by stories of other saviors/heroes!
It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
nightshadetwine
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Re: Jesus and other saviors/heroes

Post by nightshadetwine »

rgprice wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:10 am There are two big problems with most of this:
1) Many of these stories about Jesus didn't develop until much later. The original concept of Jesus was not even as a human being. The birth narrative, for example was added much later, many early Christian sects said that Jesus had never been born at all, that he had existed since the beginning of time, etc.
All of these motifs are in the books and letters of the New Testament. When I say Jesus is influenced by other saviors/heroes I mean Jesus as portrayed in the books and letters of the New Testament.

2) The Jewish sources for the Jesus story are obvious. Every aspect of Jesus can clearly and definitively be traced to Jewish sources.

Looking for "pagan influences" on the origin of the figure is barking up the wrong tree. There were definitely a lot of pagan influences on the later development of Christianity, like from 4th century on, but the original cult was very Jewish in origin.


Of course there's a Jewish influence, that goes without saying. Some of these motifs you find in the Hebrew scriptures. You find all of these motifs in ANE religions. I think Christianity is a combination of Judaism and Greco-Roman religion.
The parallels with Jewish stories are far, far closer than anything from pagan mythology.
Except, as far as I know, Jewish stories didn't have a dying and resurrecting savior who performed miracles like turning water into wine and raising people from the dead and followers who performed a ritual(baptism) where they would identify with his death and resurrection.
Last edited by nightshadetwine on Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
nightshadetwine
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Re: Jesus and other saviors/heroes

Post by nightshadetwine »

GakuseiDon wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 8:17 am Nice data! I'm looking forward to you providing evidence for the story of Jesus being influenced by stories of other saviors/heroes!
Are you not able to see all of my post?
rgprice
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Re: Jesus and other saviors/heroes

Post by rgprice »

nightshadetwine wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:30 am Except, as far as I know, Jewish stories didn't have a dying and resurrecting savior who performed miracles like turning water into wine and raising people from the dead and followers who performed a ritual(baptism) where they would identify with his death and resurrection.
Jesus very closely resembles figures from stories like The Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah, The Book of Enoch, Apocalypse of Zephaniah, etc.

Turning water to wine is an invention of the author of John, as part of his "miraculous signs" narrative, which I contend, was invented by the author as an embellishment of the "miraculous signs" passage from GMark to show that the Jews were culpable for not having believed in Jesus because he had demonstrated his powers to them via "miraculous signs". Same goes with the Lazarus story, it's also a part of the "miraculous signs" narrative.

Now baptism as a practice does seem to have been borrowed from the mystery religions, but that's more of a practice of the cult than an attribute of Jesus himself.
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Re: Jesus and other saviors/heroes

Post by MrMacSon »

rgprice wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:57 am
Now baptism as a practice does seem to have been borrowed from the mystery religions, but that's more of a practice of the cult than an attribute of Jesus himself.
.
I agree. One particular mystery religion that used immersion in water was the cult of Sarapis ('Serapis' to the Romans), a religion either invented by or elevated and promoted by Ptolemy Soter 1 to try to continue to bind the Greeks and Egyptians after the death of Alexander the Great: Sarapis = Osiris and Apis combined (initially 'Osirapis'), but Serapis's eventual iconography, by the first century AD/CE, was identical to what became the imagery for Jesus of Nazareth (without the modus or basket, of course, that was frequently on the head of Serapis).

The temples to Serapis - a serapeum - contained baths in immersion chambers.
CHRISTIAN ROOTS IN THE ALEXANDRIAN CULT OF SERAPIS

The cult of Serapis was to have sweeping success throughout Greece and Asia Minor, especially in Rome, where it became the most popular religion. There was a Serapis temple in Rome as early as 105 BC. Initiation into the Serapis cult included the rite of baptism, and Sir Alan Gardiner, the British Egyptologist, argued in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology in 1950 that Egyptian baptism should be seen as analogous to Christian baptism, of which he commented: "In both cases a symbolic cleansing by means of water serves as initiation into a properly legitimated religious life." The cults of Serapis and Isis did not merely survive the emergence of Christianity, but in the 2nd century AD actually increased in popularity. Serapis and Christ existed side-by-side and were frequently seen as interchangeable. Some early Christians made no distinction between Christ and Serapis and frequently worshipped both, while paintings of Isis with her son Horus became identified by early Christians as portraits of Mary with her son Jesus. The rite of baptism, part of the initiation ceremony of the Serapis cult, was also adopted by the Church as part of its initiation ceremony.

http://dwij.org/forum/amarna/8_serapis_ ... ianity.htm
See this thread http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 614#p26614
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robert j
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Re: Jesus and other saviors/heroes

Post by robert j »

nightshadetwine wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:30 am
Except, as far as I know, Jewish stories didn't have a dying and resurrecting savior ...
It seems that Paul, with his predilection for creative readings of the Jewish scriptures, may very well have derived those events of his Jesus Christ from Isaiah 53 ---

Isaiah 53 (a few examples)How Paul Interpreted
This one bears (φέρει) our sins, and is grieved for us, and we accounted him to be in trouble, and calamity, and ill treatment (53:4)bears (φέρει) --- present, indicative, active --- the sacrifice of Jesus is acting in the present time in “bearing” our sins.
But he was wounded (ετραυματίσθη) on account of our sins, and was bruised because of our iniquities … (53:5)

… the Lord delivered him up (παρέδωκεν αυτόν) for our sins. (53:6)

he was led (ήχθη) to death. (53:8)

… his soul was delivered up (παρεδόθη) unto death … (53:12)
All these verbs are in the aorist, indicative representing the past tense here.

I think Paul saw the death of Jesus as a done-deal within the realm of the book of Isaiah.

“Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3)

"Who was delivered over for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification." (Romans 4:25)
The Lord wills to cleanse him from his blow. If you can give an offering for sin, your soul will see a long-lived seed. And the Lord wills to take away from the travail of his soul, to show him light, and to form [him] with understanding; to justify the just one who serves many well; and he will bear their sins. Therefore he will inherit many, and he will divide the spoils of the mighty; because his soul was delivered up unto death … (53:10-12)I think Paul saw the concept of the resurrection of his Christ in these verses.

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